Rilar
by The Great One2
Summary: A story based on the adventures of Rilar the squirrel, with a romantic subplot in the later chapters. Unfinished, but feel free to see what's here! Please RandR!
1. Viand

The waves tossed the Nightshade gently up and down as the winter wind blew lightly on tattered olive-colored sails. Vermin skittered up and down her deck, readying her for her reunion with the shore after a long summer and autumn. Just as one of the longboats was swung out over the side. A hatch opened in the deck, and out from it came the weasel whose name had made many a coastal beast shiver with fear and the hares of Salamandastron wrinkle their noses in disgust: Viand Blacktooth!  
  
He moved with ease and grace usually noted only among squirrels and hares, and in his eyes glinted an intelligence rarely seen on the faces of vermin. He wore dashing black pantaloons and a matching vest, and slung over his shoulder a pearl-handled scimitar gleamed. A small, lean brown rat slinked up to him.  
  
"Cap'n Blacktooth, yer Lordship, we've made ready to land."  
  
Viand nodded.  
  
"Very good, Skinfoot. See that the rest of the sails are furled."  
  
Skinfoot was a new recruit, not especially learned in the ways of the sea or in Viand's temper.  
  
"But Cap'n, we can't furl all o' the sails in open water! You'll get us all killed, I tell yer!"  
  
Faster than Skinfoot's eye could follow, Viand smashed him in the face with the hilt of his scimitar. The injured and angry rat made the mistake of going for his weapon. Another quick motion by Viand, and Skinfoot's head looped gracefully over the side of the boat and gently splashed into the water.  
  
Viand looked around at the rest of the crew. "Anyone else have any smart ideas? Anyone?" The deck was absolutely silent. "Good. Now get the rest of the sails furled and get this-" He kicked at what moments ago had been a living creature-"Out of here."  
  
He strode over and stood watching by the longboat and watched as his crew sprung back into action as he knew they would. He had picked the crew very carefully. Skinfoot had been very good with the bow. It had been a shame he had to kill him.  
  
Two rats rolled the corpse off the gangplank, while an assortment of rats stoats, and ferrets scurried up into the rigging and furled the sails under the careful eye of Viand's first mate, a fox by the name of Swarth.  
  
Minutes later the longboats were rowing steadily toward a long stretch of beach occupied by nothing but low dunes and caves. Far to the north he saw a towering group of enormous rock formations, and in between them-what was this? An enormous ship! Or half of a ship, rather. It must have been stuck there during a storm. Poor captaining, or an ineptitude by one of the crew. Something that would never happen on his ship.  
  
One by one the longboats pulled up along the beach and three quarters of the crew, about a hundred beasts in all, poured out, a motley collection of various vermin brandishing cutlasses, spears, bows, and countless other weapons. Many captains would only have left about a dozen guards on their ships, but Viand had seen far to many ships overrun and their crews stranded on shore with no escape. It was a strategy he had used many times. And Viand Blacktooth was not one to make other beasts mistakes.  
  
He leaped gracefully from his boat and onto the cold gray sand. He breathed in the salty air and listened to the wind howl through the caves. It was a wind of gloom, fear and despair. It was nature spreading news to itself all over the land.  
  
Viand Blacktooth is here! 


	2. Rilar

Many miles away from the landing of Vian Blacktooth, the hedgehog youngster Burbles frolicked happily in front of an enormous oak, tree, near the freezing winter river on which his families log houseboat was docked. He called to his baby brother, Lipkin.  
  
"Oy! Lipkin! I'll bet you can't beat me from here to the big stump over there and back!"  
  
"And I'll bet you can't get there at all, Burbles, you little troublemaker!" called his mother, Mayferry, from the deck of the raft where she was tidying up. "Over there I can't get to you quick if you get in trouble, and if anyone can get in trouble in the middle of the forest, 'tis you! And there's slavers in these woods!"  
  
Resigned to staying on the shore of the river while his parents cleaned up and restocked the raft, Burbles quickly became bored. He looked over to his father, Beechnut, who was also on deck.  
  
"Ah, dad, when can I come back on the raft? I'm hungry and thirsty," he said, whining as only young hedgehogs can whine.  
  
"Of course not! I've scarcely finished scrubbing your grubby little pawprints off of this raft, and you want to put 'em all back again? And as for hunger and thirst, this stream is plenty clean and clear, and there's a whole clump of violets sittin' right by the shore, just waiting to be eaten up by you n' Lipkin! Now run along and let you mother and I clean up this raft in peace!"  
  
Mumbling about barbaric meanness, Burbles slouched away from the bank. Then he decided to go explore the big stump he'd wanted to race Lipkin to earlier. No sense in asking him to come along-he'd just run straight to their parents. He wasn't worried about getting caught by his parents themselves-they were far to busy with their precious boat to worry about checking on him very often. And he would just slip away for a few seconds. They could even see him. Nothing could go wrong.  
  
He was just climbing over the stump when he got more scared than he had ever been in his entire life. A great-to him-creature jumped out at him and grabbed him, holding him tightly in a frigid grip. At the same time, he felt hot, horrible smelling breath roll over him as if in a wave.  
  
"All right you little brat, just hold still and nothin' bad'll happen to yer!"  
  
Fortunately, Burble was only silent for a little while, as the shock set in. As the stoat-for that's what the creature was-was shackling his legs together with a long section of chain, Burble screamed in terror. His parents leaped from the raft and began running up the hill, but even as they did Burble realized that they were far too distant to do anything. Even as he thought of this, the stoat angrily cuffed him in the side of the head. He drew out a short dagger, and Burble curled up as best he could in absolute terror.  
  
Suddenly a golden flash seemingly dropped from the sky and the vermin screamed and flew sideways into a tree. He crumpled up at the foot of the tree and lay still. In amazement Burbles realized that the golden flash was actually a great male squirrel, brandishing a short thick pole, amber in color and polished to a sheen. He was just leaning over to pick up burble from the ground when his parents arrived, huffing ad puffing from their exertion. His mother grabbed him and embraced him.  
  
"Oh, Burble, you're all right! Don't ever do anything like that to me again! I thought you were dead or gone for sure!" She turned to the squirrel. "Thank you, sir, and if there's anything we can do to repay you, just name it and it's yours." She looked at him expectantly.  
  
The squirrel stood deep in thought for several moments. Then he spoke. His voice was strong, but tired. Burbles realized as he looked at the strangers clothing and face that he had come a very long way.  
  
"Three things," he said, "If you have them. First, food. I haven't eaten a true meal in almost half a season. Second, weapons. My staff is a fine thing, and it has served me well, but for what I intend to do I need much more. Third, information. I need to know if you have heard any rumors or news of sea rats or pirates, especially one by the name of Viand Blacktooth. I am looking for him, and have been for years now."  
  
"Well, sir," Mayferry, said, stuttering and slightly taken aback from the last request, "As for food, there'll be no problems there. I'll head back to the raft-that's where we live, on a raft-and cook you up a good hedgehog meal right now, if you please, and as for weapons, I'm sure we can find something lying about-you never can trust any new place, as we both just saw. And about the Pirates and whatnot, well I'm just not sure-Have you heard anything, Beechnut?  
  
Beechnut rolled his eyes back and thought. "Well now. I recall that just about a week ago a mole a little upstream said he'd heard about some raiders attacking a little settlement of mice along the coast off to the west. But wait, now that I think about it he said the pirate captain was a great stoat named Slip, or summat like that. Anyway, I never heard of you Viand Blacktooth character."  
  
The squirrel sighed. "Well, I suppose I can't be disappointed, not after your wonderful offer of food and supplies. It is much appreciated. By the way, My name is Rular Oakstaff." And with that he strode off in the direction of the raft, with Burbles and his parents following close behind. Mayferry tried to make conversation with Rular as they walked.  
  
"So, master Rilar, what brings you to these parts? Why are you following this pirate, this Viand Blacktooth?"  
  
"That will be discussed later. I will be able to tell you all about it later, after you young ones are out of the way. It is not a good tale for anyone but us three."  
  
Later that night, after a homely dinner of cornbread, vegetable soup, and fresh caught fish from the river, Rular relaxed, sat back in his chair, and began telling his tale.  
  
"My earliest memory is a happy one. I was born and raised in a grove of pine trees near the seacoast. For the first few years of my life, that grove of trees was my whole world. I made friends, I learned to climb and jump from tree to tree, I began to experience romance-" His face dissolved into a mask of pain, anger, and most of all, unbelievable sadness. "Then it was all over in one quick afternoon.  
  
"I was playing at the edge of the grove that day, something I was doing less often as I came into adulthood. It was fortunate that I was, or I would not be here telling you this tale.  
  
"We had seen a ship land about a quarter mile up the coast earlier that morning, but we hadn't paid much attention. We leave everyone around our grove alone, as a rule, and they leave us alone. Besides, we were good fighters, when we had to be, so to us there was no real threat posed by the ship. Or so we thought.  
  
"In the mid afternoon, we were ambushed without warning by the pirate crews of Viand Blacktooth. No one was spared. My parents, my lover, my childhood friends-" He paused to compose himself. "Were slaughtered defenseless while Viand looked on and laughed.  
  
"I escaped, but only because I left just as we were attacked. I was young then, and would have been of no use even if I had stayed and fought. As far as I know, I was the only survivor.  
  
"So, since then, I have walked miles up and down the coast, looking for Viand Blacktooth and his pirate crew to exact my revenge on him."  
  
Mayferry and Beechnut sat silent for a moment. They had lived peaceful lives, for the most part, and stories of mass slaughter and cruelty shocked them. Beechnut finally spoke.  
  
"Well, my friend, we would be glad to do whatever we could to help you. Or raft is your raft, for the time being, anyway. We don't leave this spot for a week, at least."  
  
"I appreciate it, my friend"," Rilar said, "But after all of these years time is a luxury that was stripped away from me along with my friends and family. If I stay in one place, the trail goes cold, as I have learned many a time already. If you gentlebeasts are willing, I will stay in your raft for the night and accept any food or supplies you have to give in the morning, but after that I must leave. Every moment that the scum of the seas walks or sails alive is a moment of torture for me."  
  
And so it was. Rilar departed from the hedgehog raft the next morning. As he disappeared into the distance, Beechnut leaned over to Mayferry and spoke in a low voice, "I don't know if that is how master Rilar always behaves, but if it is, I feel sorely sorry for whoever was stupid enough to kill his kin." 


	3. At the Pirate Camp

The hot summer sun beat down on the back of the ferret Stripesnout as he hauled another bag of supplies over towards the newly patched up and more seaworthy Nightshade, which was almost ready to set sail once again. It had been a great amount of luck that they had these supplies at all-just their luck that an unusually large tribe of warrior mice, almost three hundred at least, inhabited the caves near the shore. Stripesnout would have thought they weren't there-they had been known to be long ago, but he thought they would have left by now. They had attacked the pirates after a few days, killing about a score of the seabeasts before they were slaughtered. Stripesnout had greatly enjoyed it. A mother mouse had thrown herself in front of babies to save them. He killed her, then threw the babies into the water. He considered himself lucky-he hadn't been assigned to the group of seabeasts that had to fight the male warrior mice, but to the group that attacked their homes while they were away. Another excellent idea of Viands. Who needed to think when your captain was as brilliant as he was? Out of the blue Stripesnout heard a voice from behind the dunes. "Oy, mate, gimme a hand with this here sack, will ye?" The voice wasn't familiar, but it was a big crew. It was probably one of the new recruits. Most of those rats were weak enough to knock down one hand- Something pushed him and knocked him down from behind. Instead of yelling, Stripesnout stupidly started getting to his feet and drawing his saber. It never got out of its scabbard. A knife went through his throat and he died without a sound. * * * Rilar rolled the dead vermin over and took away everything useful-the satchel of food, the saber, a few other odds and ends-and threw the rest into a loose pile. He wiped of the cooking knife the hedgehog family had given him on the dead ferret's shirt, then rolled the body into a small indentation in the sand and covered it, along with all the useless knick knacks he had been carrying. By the time anyone found it, he would be long gone. He crept back over the dune, and for the first time in more years than he could count looked upon the camp of the pirate scum that had killed his family, killed his baby brothers and sisters and parents while they begged for mercy. He looked, eyes red with hate, at the enormous black fox who had run a spear through Goldtail, the first and only other beast he ever loved besides his family. There was no sign of the pirate captain himself. This was not surprising. Probably he both wanted to avoid work and avoid being killed by an arrow shot before any of his crew detected the killer. If there was anything the weasel Vian Blacktooth was besides evil, it was intelligent. His first impulse was to charge the camp and take down as many vermin as possible before he died. But then he decided to hold back. At the first sign of an attack, Vian would get to the most secure spot in the camp, and even a squirrel full of the bloodwrath couldn't fight through the fourscore or so beasts on the beach, along with who knew how many more in the ship. Instead he decided to retreat to the makeshift camp he had built for himself a little way down the beach. He would sit and think awhile, and come up with a plan of some sort. He always did. As he backed up down the side of the dune, something hit him full force in the back. Fighting the urge to cry out in pain, he rolled clear and whipped out the same thick staff he had used to help save the hedgehog youngster many months ago. Falling into the defensive position, he looked up to see what kind of opponent he was facing and how many, and was surprised to see that his attacker was not a searat or other vermin at all, but a mouse! The mouse hurriedly lowered the short spear he carried when he realized who and what Rilar was. "I'm deeply sorry, sir. I'm patrolling around or camp and took you to be a weasel or something of the kind. My name is Zacharius, and you are welcome to stay at our camp tonight." Rilar smiled warmly. "I accept your offer of hospitality, friend. I took you to be a vermin of some sort, for which I apologize. I do need to get a few things from my camp first, a little ways down the shore. If you would accompany me, I would very much like to hear the story about who you are and where you came from, and would be happy to tell my own." "That is tale best left for a later time. But I would be most interested in hearing your tale." As they walked back to Rilar's makeshift camp about a quarter mile away and back, the sky darkened into evening as Rilar told Zacharius the same story he had told the hedgehog family, along with the fact that he had arrived here after trailing the crew of the Nightshade across the land for may seasons. Zacharius was very glad to hear all of this. "Blessed we are indeed to have found you! You are just the sort of beast we need to rid this beach and these caves of the sea scum once and for all. But that will be left for later. Come now, and meet what only several days ago was a thriving, peaceful tribe." They had arrived back along the cliffs, a considerable way further down. The caves here were not the warm, dry, larger variety in the vicinity of the pirate camp. These were barely even caves, scant cracks and crevices in the wall of cold, seawater-sodden rock. Inside these were about two dozen mice, huddling in what rags they could to keep out the still chilly wind. A in front of these, a few scruffy looking mice were hauling in a few fish that they had apparently caught from the sea a few yards away. One of these dropped his load when he saw them approaching. As he strode over to them Rilar recognized both from his looks and the way he carried himself that he was the leader of this motley band. "Zacharius, I'm pleased to see you back safe and sound. When you did not return from your patrol before dark we feared the worst. But now I see you had good reason for your tardiness. A good reason indeed." He looked Rilar up and down, his eyes lingering on the various weapons he carried and noting Rilar's tough, muscular build. "Greetings, new friend. If Zacharius has brought you back here I gather it was to help with our cause. I thank you for this." At this Zacharius cut in. "He has not been informed of our cause, but he has told me his story, very similar to ours." Louis, as he introduced himself, smiled thinly. "Well, new friend, if you are to join our cause I suppose you must know what it is and why it exists." He went on to tell a tale almost identical to Rilar's own. The tribe Louis had lead were peaceful and non-threatening. The pirates landed and when they went to fight them off they slaughtered, down to the last mother and baby. Louis had taken this small group, the only survivors out of over three hundred beasts, to these caves, which he knew about from exploring the beach as a child. Hearing the story brought back memories far to vivid for Rilar to bear. The big squirrel fell to the beach and sobbed. He didn't move for almost half an hour and the mice didn't disturb him. Finally, he rose, the sadness in his eyes masked by the hate for the vermin who had done this terrible thing. "Anything I can do to help is yours. I will stay here until Blacktooth and every one of his scum he calls a crew are dead." Louis nodded grimly. "I understand. We planed to attack them guerilla style as soon as our wounded were healed and we had lain in enough weapons, but we were worried about having enough warriors. Aside from Zacharius and myself, we've only got about half a dozen fighting beasts. Now that we have you, we should have an easier time of it." And so it was for a few weeks. Rilar concerned himself with catching and cleaning fish, tending the wounded, checking, storing, and repairing weapons, and countless other small duties that he had never had since the days when he lived in the pine grove. He realized that the grove was only about a day's journey away, but even as he realized it he knew he could never go there again. There was too much pain there for him. Besides, the small duties and living among a tribe again, even one of another species, was comforting somehow. Not only that, but here, for the first time, he found someone who understood why he had to be a warrior, was sharing in his hate for vermin rather than be appalled by it. He, Zacharius, Louis, and a few other of the mice stayed up late into the night, plotting strategy, how they would attack and where their soldiers would go. At last the day came. Rilar watched with the rest of the male warriors as the women and children piled onto a pair of small boats and set out for a point about two miles down the coast, away from the fighting. He turned to Louis, who nodded and, gesturing to the group of about ten beasts who had stayed behind, Headed down the beach towards the forward camp that they had set up near the vermin ship. He talked over some last minute strategy as they walked. "The ship is packed, and we'll only have two or three days at most. We want to do as much damage as possible without a full-on attack. Sabotage, picking off the vermin who wander too far away, lowering morale and things like that. It should work." Rilar grimaced. "Friend, let's hope it does-for our sake, for the sake of my kin, for the sake of the beasts sailing down the shoreline right now, for everything." 


	4. Slaves

Viand Blacktooth looked out over the beach and surrounding dunes with not one whit of thought to beauty or thoughts of nature. He was doing what he almost always did-thinking. If you didn't think, you got careless. If you got careless, you made mistakes. If you made mistakes, you died. He'd sent hundreds of his enemies to the grave that way, because he didn't make mistakes. If he did, these were instantly corrected and learned from. The last time he had wanted to do a pirate enemy of his in, he had ambushed his ship while his crew celebrated on shore, using the sound of a windy night and thus larger waves as cover for putting his beasts in position. The last thing he needed was for someone to pull the same trick on him. Satisfied that there were no attackers moving about the dunes, Viand turned his attention to what part of the deck he could see from his private quarters. Sentries were neatly spread out and at attention-wait one was dozing-there, Viand thought to himself, he fell asleep. The rat would be whipped for it, flogged in front of the whole crew-then, all at once, Viand stopped and looked closer at the immobile weasel. He wasn't breathing-then, outlined against the slightly reflecting water, he saw an arrow shaft.  
  
* * *  
  
Swarth, Viands fox first mate, was the first to hear Viand's yells. He knew what was happening almost immediately. "Attack! We're under attack!" Swarth dropped to the deck just as a pair of arrows sang out over his head and lodged themselves in the mast just behind them. "Sentries! Drop! Get to Cover! Wake the crew!" While Viand's crew weren't, with a few exceptions, the smartest vermin on the seas, they were the quickest, and the best at sailing and fighting there were. One other rat groaned in pain and toppled over with an arrow in him, bust the rest dropped down and scurried over towards the cover of the bow, pulling out slings and bows, yelling for the crew to wake up and help. But by the time the crew came up on deck, bloodthirsty and armed to the teeth, the arrows had stopped. The archers were gone, but not before slaying one more beast-Swarth, with a lucky shot that caught him in the forehead as he peered over the side of the ship looking for a target.  
  
* * *  
  
Rilar and the warrior mice slid down the side of the dunes back towards their camp, following the shoreline back as soon as they went around the bend in the coast. Viand's trackers were talented, and the exposure of their camp would be disastrous. As soon as they were a safe distance away, Zacharius went over the success of their sortie. "Well, none of us are hurt, but I don't know if any of the vermin are, either. Did anyone see any of them fall?" Louis shook his head. "But even if we didn't slay anybeast, we'll still hurt their morale. An invisible assassin shooting arrows at you in the middle of the night is enough to upset almost anyone, even Viand." "But no need to worry," interjected one of the other mice. "I saw one of the vermin fall anyway. I don't know who shot him. One of the sentries." Cheered at this, the party jogged on in silence for awhile. Eventually Rilar spoke. "We'll have to kill Viand eventually, you know. If we want to make this worthwhile, we must wipe that piece of scum off the earth once and for all. He can't harm any goodbeasts from behind the gates of the dark forest." Louis nodded and the other mice murmured their general agreement. "But it will be difficult. Viand might be evil and undeserving of life, but he's smart. And once we do get to him, who will take him on? All of us have good reason to want him dead. I'm sure all of us would like the honor." Rilar jogged along deep in thought. On the one hand, seeing the vermin die at his own hand would fulfill the entire purpose of his life. To do it himself would be the greatest thing he would ever do. On the other hand, after hearing the story of the mice, who had lost just as much as he had, his heart had gone out to them. Surely their hate for Blacktooth was as great as his. "Though I would love nothing more than to kill that vermin scum, it is more important to me to see him dead than to do it myself. Louis, Zacharius, you have every right in the world to be able to do this yourselves. I won't get in your way." Louis patted Rilar's arm twice, gently. "Thank you, friend. We appreciate this more than we can ever explain." He looked at the group of mice surrounding them as they arrived at their camp. Louis squatted down and, as all of the mice that didn't have first watch got ready for bed, reviewed their strategy. "Tomorrow morning we'll head back to their ship and see if anything's changed. We might try to steal some supplies or something like that. I also want to check to see how many more guards they'll be posting now that they know we're here. If everything goes well, we'll do another quick volley or two after nightfall and come back here. This time though, we'll wait between volleys. I want to draw more crew and especially officers onto the deck.." Everyone nodded their agreement and Rilar slept with the rest of the mice, dreaming of the pine grove, and of other squirrels, and of the days to come. Chapter Five The sun beat down on the heads of the vermin as they bustled about on the beach, loading supplies and watching as their slaves hauled in a few trees for timber, used to repair part of the underbelly of the ship, which, despite the attack the night before, had been beached to give the carpenters room to work.. The biggest, meanest, dumbest members of the crew had been put in charge of the chin gangs, beating them with a whip as they hauled the logs painfully slowly through the thick sand towards the Nightshade. Flipjaw, a particularly dumb, big, mean ferret, had been placed in charge of the chain gangs just this morning, and was immensely enjoying his new job. There was practically no work, except to beat the slaves, which he did, almost non-stop and with great vigor, cursing the workers and calling them fat and lazy, telling them they would have to work for their food. He wasn't worried about attackers, not while they had so many wonderful hostages chained up right on the beach. He sat back and relaxed for a while, happy that, for the first tie in months, he didn't have to work..  
  
* * *  
  
Rilar squinted down onto the camp from behind a small bush atop a dune and muttered quietly to Zacharius beside him. "We can't risk an attack, not like this. We've got to free those slaves first. There must be some way. And when we do, we could recruit them, somehow, I'm sure of it." Zacharius answered back just as quietly. "I know what you're thinking, and my heart goes out to those slaves just as much as yours does, but there's simply no way to save them without risking the safety of everybeast here-those slaves, you me, and the rest of our group. I'm not willing to take that chance." Rilar's breath hissed between his teeth in frustration. 


End file.
